My notes on the Single Block:
Very light Pinot. Red berry notes (strawberry/raspberry), a little smokey and light earthiness. Good acidity, low alcohol. Ok finish. Good solid Oregon Pinot.
Not over the top fruity and heavy like many CA Pinots, but not quite as light and earthy-forest floor-barnyard as Burgundy.

-il CesareSole Absolute Triple
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“In the entire world there are only a few sounds that bring joy to all but the most jaded. One is the murmur of a kitten purring. Another is the thwack of a well-pitched baseball hitting a perfectly swung bat. And the third is the pop of a cork being pulled from a bottle of wine.” —George Taber

klezman

Ok, here we go. I may need to get this even though I swore to not buy any wine for a while. I'd be up for a split on this one also.

Had the chance to taste this one last month as well, and here are my notes:

At first smell it screamed Oregon Pinot to me. Earthy, mushroomy, and not a lot of fruit on the nose. This is one of those few wines that I've wanted to characterize as having a bit of dirty diaper aroma going on, but in a good way. The taste was zippy with great acid. Bright raspberries and sour cherry. Mushroom reappeared here and I found it almost meaty. I even wrote "delicious".

I had the remaining bit of the bottle a few days later. I'd just recorked it and kept it in a moderate temperature zone (not the fridge). I thought it retained almost all the elements of its first night performance, strangely enough. I'd expected more evolution than that. One thing is for sure, though, this is on the heavier side of Pinot Noir.

Note: I didn't jot down whether this was the Single Block or regular, but I suspect it's the latter. Hopefully somebody else who was there that night can clarify that part.

Note^2: We had another Pinot to compare this with that night, from the Santa Cruz Mtns. The SC had way more fruit, but to me had less structure and acidity. Both were delicious, but I preferred the OR while most others present preferred the SC.

tytiger58

klezman wrote:Ok, here we go. I may need to get this even though I swore to not buy any wine for a while. I'd be up for a split on this one also.

Had the chance to taste this one last month as well, and here are my notes:

At first smell it screamed Oregon Pinot to me. Earthy, mushroomy, and not a lot of fruit on the nose. This is one of those few wines that I've wanted to characterize as having a bit of dirty diaper aroma going on, but in a good way. The taste was zippy with great acid. Bright raspberries and sour cherry. Mushroom reappeared here and I found it almost meaty. I even wrote "delicious".

I had the remaining bit of the bottle a few days later. I'd just recorked it and kept it in a moderate temperature zone (not the fridge). I thought it retained almost all the elements of its first night performance, strangely enough. I'd expected more evolution than that. One thing is for sure, though, this is on the heavier side of Pinot Noir.

Note: I didn't jot down whether this was the Single Block or regular, but I suspect it's the latter. Hopefully somebody else who was there that night can clarify that part.

Note^2: We had another Pinot to compare this with that night, from the Santa Cruz Mtns. The SC had way more fruit, but to me had less structure and acidity. Both were delicious, but I preferred the OR while most others present preferred the SC.

This is interesting, I was one that felt that this one was way to fruity and jammy almost like it had syrah blended in so I liked the SC pinot better. But now that I think about it I had this wine right after drinking a glass or two of fairly dry champagne. Maybe I did not give this one a fair taste. I would do a split if anyone wants.

areaman714

I am pretty finicky when it comes to my Pinot . . . to a myopic fault. I tend to stick with Napa/Sonoma as the climate is assuringly temperate. Oregon's climate is much much more labile in temperature and wetness, thus, securing an optimal Pinot can be tricky. Might someone more experienced give me a nutshell opinion on Oregon Pinot (circa 2007)? Thank you! The price seems quite tempting on these . . .

greyday

areaman714 wrote:I am pretty finicky when it comes to my Pinot . . . to a myopic fault. I tend to stick with Napa/Sonoma as the climate is assuringly temperate. Oregon's climate is much much more labile in temperature and wetness, thus, securing an optimal Pinot can be tricky. Might someone more experienced give me a nutshell opinion on Oregon Pinot (circa 2007)? Thank you! The price seems quite tempting on these . . .

I can't speak to this Pinot specifically, but I personally have loved most of the 07 willamette valley pinots I've had, to the point that it will be either a sell out or pure economics (spent wayyyy too much on wine in 2012) that stops me from buying this.

As for the plush vs this question, that's a toughie. The plush is excellent, and I haven't had this, so I'd probably get this solely based on that, but I would comfortably say that either is a good buy, especially at the price point.

EDIT TO ADD: I will say that we drink a lot of this stuff up here, so the fact that there are no oregon sales at this time, while not THAT telling since it's night of, makes me lean towards the plush in that argument. That said, tomorrow will be a better judge. If oregon goes dark maroon, buy it in a heartbeat.

dah7m

areaman714 wrote:I am pretty finicky when it comes to my Pinot . . . to a myopic fault. I tend to stick with Napa/Sonoma as the climate is assuringly temperate. Oregon's climate is much much more labile in temperature and wetness, thus, securing an optimal Pinot can be tricky. Might someone more experienced give me a nutshell opinion on Oregon Pinot (circa 2007)? Thank you! The price seems quite tempting on these . . .

I can tell you that the "conventional wisdom" is that 2007 is not a particularly strong year for Oregon PN. Now, there are boatloads of exception to that thinking, and I have had some truly exceptional bottles. But if you were forced to blindly choose between 2007 and say 2008 or 2010, you'd want the latter two every time.
I know nothing about this bottle, but if other people are vouching for it you should consider trying it. I actually far prefer the mushroom+raspberry+earth thing that you see in so much Oregon wine than the extracted FRUIT FRUIT FRUIT thing that you see in so much Sonoma wine. (Which I also like a great deal.)
But yea, Oregon is where it's at, as far as I'm concerned.

eluofthenine

EDIT TO ADD: ...so the fact that there are no oregon sales at this time, while not THAT telling since it's night of, makes me lean towards the plush in that argument. That said, tomorrow will be a better judge. If oregon goes dark maroon, buy it in a heartbeat.

rmm989

richardhod

dah7m wrote:I can tell you that the "conventional wisdom" is that 2007 is not a particularly strong year for Oregon PN. Now, there are boatloads of exception to that thinking, and I have had some truly exceptional bottles. But if you were forced to blindly choose between 2007 and say 2008 or 2010, you'd want the latter two every time.
I know nothing about this bottle, but if other people are vouching for it you should consider trying it. I actually far prefer the mushroom+raspberry+earth thing that you see in so much Oregon wine than the extracted FRUIT FRUIT FRUIT thing that you see in so much Sonoma wine. (Which I also like a great deal.)
But yea, Oregon is where it's at, as far as I'm concerned.

This is one where i'd love some pH and TA information. Klezman, how was the acidity in your tasting? I see the alcohol is a very respectable 13.5% which bodes well for a balanced rather than big style!

Well said dah7m! Horses for courses. If you like big, opulent Pinots, then stay with California ones, but if you want some zing and Burgundy, you'll do a lot better with Oregon. Of course, there are some great CA exceptions, but that's for other parts of this message board!
Even though it's "not a great year". That's pretty relative, but Oregon is more likely for Old-world PN lovers! Not had this, but the Expression in the woot plus are good 2007s, as was Torii Mor. I'd say 07 was a more austere year, rather than bad, as both Oregon PNs I've ever had were (wooted) 2007s, and both pretty damn good, when allowed to open up! though maybe this varies a lot around the state, as I'm not an Oregon authority at ALL!

rjquillin

klezman wrote:Had the chance to taste this one last month as well, and here are my notes:

At first smell it screamed Oregon Pinot to me. Earthy, mushroomy, and not a lot of fruit on the nose. This is one of those few wines that I've wanted to characterize as having a bit of dirty diaper aroma going on, but in a good way. The taste was zippy with great acid. Bright raspberries and sour cherry. Mushroom reappeared here and I found it almost meaty. I even wrote "delicious".

Note: I didn't jot down whether this was the Single Block or regular, but I suspect it's the latter. Hopefully somebody else who was there that night can clarify that part.

Note^2: We had another Pinot to compare this with that night, from the Santa Cruz Mtns. The SC had way more fruit, but to me had less structure and acidity. Both were delicious, but I preferred the OR while most others present preferred the SC.

It was this one

And yes, tasty; earthy and balanced, not a CA fruit PN.
Split, or am I late to the party like I was that evening as well?

klezman

richardhod wrote:This is one where i'd love some pH and TA information. Klezman, how was the acidity in your tasting? I see the alcohol is a very respectable 13.5% which bodes well for a balanced rather than big style!

Great acid, not a ton of fruit. Given your Burgundy preferences I think this is in your wheelhouse.

Ron or tyger, I'm in. I should be the purchaser at this point, though, but if tyger can't and there's still splitting happening then I can suck it up. Or perhaps Ron gets 2 sets and we split 4 ways: Ron, tyger, Richard, me?

neilfindswine

Nice Oregon juice here; tasting notes on the Estate above care of Mr. Klezman are pretty spot on. NIce acidity; gentle fruit notes of tart cherry, maybe a hint of pomegranate. I've had some WV pinots that have more of the earthy mushroom than this one, but it's woven in there nonetheless.

The Single Block is a little lighter but with similar qualities albeit a little less of the tart cherry and more strawberry, but fruit is again subtle.

As mentioned '07 was a mixed bag for Oregon; a lot of early rain that year before the pick watered down some of the crop. As always though, the deft winemakers handled it and some great wines resulted- the earlier mentioned Tori Mor's are a perfect example. IMHO these Eastburn wines are another.

The winemaker is Isabelle Dutartre of DePonte Cellars, who was trained in Burgundy (she's French).

tytiger58

And sorry Neil but Pfffttt to the winemaker being French, I want my Oregon pinot to taste like Oregon and my Cali pinot to taste like Cali and my French pinot to taste French. I know that seems to go against the grain nowadays.

neilfindswine

And sorry Neil but Pfffttt to the winemaker being French, I want my Oregon pinot to taste like Oregon and my Cali pinot to taste like Cali and my French pinot to taste French. I know that seems to go against the grain nowadays.

All good my friend (regarding the Pinots, not your credit card at Target), though I daresay the Oregon pinot community is rife with Burgundy influence either directly (Dom. Drouhin for example, the aforementioned Tori Mor's winemaker as well), or by Burgundy-obsessed American's (check out Scott Paul wines sometime; he makes Oregon Pinot and imports Burgundy in his spare time).

At the end of the day, good winemakers make good wine... and if they're using Oregon fruit... it should taste like.. Oregon Pinot... i think?

tytiger58

neilfindswine wrote:All good my friend (regarding the Pinots, not your credit card at Target), though I daresay the Oregon pinot community is rife with Burgundy influence either directly (Dom. Drouhin for example, the aforementioned Tori Mor's winemaker as well), or by Burgundy-obsessed American's (check out Scott Paul wines sometime; he makes Oregon Pinot and imports Burgundy in his spare time).

At the end of the day, good winemakers make good wine... and if they're using Oregon fruit... it should taste like.. Oregon Pinot... i think?

Agreed, but remember...

"California wine that tastes halfway like French wine is awesome. French wine that tastes halfway like California wine is an abomination. Try to keep up."

rjquillin

richardhod wrote:This is one where i'd love some pH and TA information. Klezman, how was the acidity in your tasting? I see the alcohol is a very respectable 13.5% which bodes well for a balanced rather than big style!

klezman

tytiger58 wrote:And sorry Neil but Pfffttt to the winemaker being French, I want my Oregon pinot to taste like Oregon and my Cali pinot to taste like Cali and my French pinot to taste French. I know that seems to go against the grain nowadays.

I think a winemaker with expertise growing and making wine with a particular grape can more easily adapt to the climate patterns and soil characteristics of a new area then the reverse. I think this is also why so few wineries make stellar wines across all varietals - they each have a personality, both in the vineyard and in the winery.

tytiger58

klezman wrote:I think a winemaker with expertise growing and making wine with a particular grape can more easily adapt to the climate patterns and soil characteristics of a new area then the reverse. I think this is also why so few wineries make stellar wines across all varietals - they each have a personality, both in the vineyard and in the winery.

I agree...but I thought we were just giving Neil a hard time because he seems like a nice guy and...well...i'm bored

bsevern

By some strange coincidence there was a bottle of the non-single block of 2007 Eastburn Vineyards Pinot on my counter today, so I decided in the name of science I should open it and post my tasting notes

I poured the first glass through my venturi to get a little air.

Nose - Funktified!! Earthy, an almost menthol component (not really, but best I can describe), and soft red fruit.

Time to taste! Bright sour cherries, soft crushed strawberries, a lil menthol, a bit of mushroom (very muted). Definitely has nice acidity, it would be a good food wine, and I suspect terrific with a nice beef bourguignon!

Very enjoyable lingering finish of tart cherry.

Although I would definitely not describe it as a fruit bomb, the fruit was vibrant and clean, really very nice. Definitely on the tart side, not the sweet side of the Pinot spectrum.

For the price, I would say this is a very solid QPR for a good quality bottle of Oregon Pinot.

EDIT:

Second glass is opening up even more, revealing nice layers of complexity with darker fruit.

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